


Those Hands pulled me from the Earth

by Ambrosia



Category: Jupiter Ascending
Genre: Biting, F/M, Fluff, this movie was so great
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-22
Updated: 2015-02-22
Packaged: 2018-03-14 13:20:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3412115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ambrosia/pseuds/Ambrosia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He slides his new space-shirt over his shoulders and somehow, goddammit, that’s worse. “Боже,” Jupe mutters under her breath. “I was just, uh, looking for the, uh,” she stops, because Caine’s back muscles nearly make her go cross-eyed. “Food, I was looking for food.” </p><p>Jupe’s totally looking at his face when Caine turns in her direction suddenly. Completely. One-hundred percent absolutely not staring at his flexing forearms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Those Hands pulled me from the Earth

Okay, so Jupe really tries not to stare at Caine’s scars. Muscles. Scars. It’s an odd combination of both, actually, now that she thinks about it. ****

No, seriously, she really puts effort into it. She does, but the man has some crazy aversion to clothing on his upper body. She didn’t notice it at first, and Jupiter supposes that at Stinger’s place he has an adequate excuse for his lack of clothing, y’know, wound and all.

But Stinger does the thing with the arisol space-magic spraycan and Caine’s all patched up and a normal person would put a shirt back on. 

But Caine isn’t normal. 

Caine is so far from her understanding of normal that Jupe almost feels whiplash from it. To be fair, forty-eight hours ago, the biggest problem in her life had been her fatigue that seeped into her bones. Jupe went to sleep tired. She woke up tired. She was fairly certain she could sleep for thirty-seven hours and _still_ , somehow, manage to be tired. 

And then space-werewolves. Half-wolf. Genetically altered wolf-person. How exactly is somebody half-albino, again?

And Stinger wears shirts, too, so it’s not some sort of space-weredog or werebee or weresongbird thing, or something from this Legion that Caine and Stinger keep mentioning, either. Though, at this point, the list of things that Jupiter Jones is going to have to space-google later is getting several pages long.

Jupe swats at the now swarming bees. "What's wrong with them?"

Caine kicks open the door and throws something that looks like a rocket launcher at Stinger, and says, "They're already here."

On Cerise, Kalique Abrasax’s red homeworld, Jupe barely has enough time to register that Caine _once_ _again_ shows up without a shirt on. 

Like, sure, to be fair, her life has become a pattern of getting knocked in and out of consciousness, which is getting older than Uncle Vassily’s vodka. And between Earth, back where Jupe _should_ be, and Cerise, she hasn’t actually had that much time to adjust to this whole space thing. 

But, yeah— Caine! Caine is good. Staring upwards at a statue of herself, or Seraphi, whichever, in a temple filled with her own visage hadn’t been bad, exactly, but definitely across the tracks from normal and in the ‘out of body experience’ part of town. And Caine’s not wearing a shirt. 

 _Again_. 

Like, Jupiter has known this space-wolfboy for probably three days, she’s spent a good majority of it unconscious, and sixty percent of the time she’s seen him, he hasn’t been wearing a shirt.

After Cerise, the journey to Orous takes a hell of a long time. Enough time for ‘I love dogs’, after which Jupe spends about three hours with her head laying against the metal-ish paneling and asking God why she’d been genetically designed with such a stupid mouth. 

But also enough time for Jupe to wander to the common space— she was surprisingly hungry after realizing that she hasn’t had something to eat since Stinger’s and having to stare at all the tasty-looking food back on Cerise. Only, she manages to accidentally walk into Caine’s assigned quarters, instead. 

“Woah, Caine,” Jupe says, trying to avert her eyes. It feels wrong somehow, cause her eyes always catch on his scars and that feels bad. Like, the slight burn on her wrists and ankles from whatever those freaky mini-aliens had done, she’s become self conscious about them. “Sorry. I, uh, sorry, I didn’t think to knock ‘cause these things don’t have doorknobs.” 

Caine does that thing where he thinks about something with a frown for just a fraction of a second before he answers. “It is no worry, your Majesty.” 

He slides his new space-shirt over his shoulders and somehow, goddammit, that’s worse. “Боже,” Jupe mutters under her breath. “I was just, uh, looking for the, uh,” she stops, because Caine’s back muscles nearly make her go cross-eyed. “Food, I was looking for food.” 

Jupe’s totally looking at his face when Caine turns in her direction suddenly. Completely. One-hundred percent absolutely not staring at his flexing forearms. Caine is easily seven inches taller than her. He’s also like, weirdly still, and calm, but not like it comes naturally to him, like he struggles with it minute to minute. Jupe, she fidgets. At home, she knocks her silverware against her plate or twists her iPhone in her fingers or drums her fingertips against the railing on the buses going downtown. 

“Uhm,” Jupe tries, making an effort to make her eyes stay on his face and not wander. The shirt really does nothing to hide the lines created by his muscles. “Yeah, uh, sorry about— I’ll just be going.” 

She uses her thumbs to point over her shoulder and shuffles her feet in the vague direction of out, wherever that may be. 

Except she doesn’t really move, more than that. Neither does wolf-boy. 

And then he does move, reaching quite literally _over_ her to push a button on the wall that slides the door open again, and slips past her into the hallway. He motions for Jupe to follow, which she does. After a millisecond of stunned silence, that is. 

Only then does she realize that Caine has led her to the actual common space, the one she was looking for. There are only a few scattered Aegis members present, and most vanish when they notice she and Caine.

“If your Majesty should need anything else,” Caine says, slowly. There’s a hint of something else in his voice, but after _I love dogs_ , _I’ve always loved dogs_ , Jupe doesn’t trust her own judgement as far as she could throw it. “I’m not far.” 

Jupiter nods. “Yeah, sure. Thanks,” she winces. “Thank you.” 

Caine disappears down the metallic hallway of the Aegis ship.

Alone in the common space, she lets out a frustrated string of russian, hissed from behind her teeth like Aleksa does at the dinner table with the rest of the Bolotnikovs. 

“Something the matter, your Majesty?” Stinger asks, making her jump. 

“Oh, god, hi, Stinger,” Jupe clears her throat. “Hi, Stinger.”

Stinger looks much more at home with the Aegis than he did as an Earth-bound bee caretaker. He still wears the uniform well, though Jupe is fairly certain that it’s not a Legion uniform, either. 

Frankly, she had just been happy for pants. 

“Hey, Stinger,” Jupiter delicately asks. “Are Entitled people really that bad? I mean,” she pauses. “Kalique didn’t seem bad at all. I dunno, it seems a bit, uh, drastic, for Caine to, well. Y’know.” 

She totally doesn’t snap her teeth in a bitey fashion.

“No, your Majesty,” Stinger says, showing a little bit of a thoughtful smile. “But Lady Kalique is only the second paragon of House Abrasax. There are others in her house, and more houses even still.” 

Jupiter likes Stinger because he doesn’t make her feel guilty for asking questions. The Bolotnikovs, back home, they did. 

“Do you mind if I ask,” Jupiter says. “And you don’t have to if you don’t want to, of course, but do you mind if I—”

She can’t even begin to formulate the question, because she can’t particularly mesh the Caine that had ripped out somebody’s throat with his teeth with the Caine that she had patched up with a maxi-pad. 

“Wondering if Caine is having trouble deciding if he wants to kill you, or do something more enjoyable?”

“What?” Jupiter squeaks, a few decibels louder than she had intended. “No, of course not,” she pauses. “That’d be…uhm, fantastic.”

Orous is what people on Earth _think_ the DMV is like. Jupe will never be bothered by the DMV again. Advocate Bob is nice and helpful enough, but even Caine is agitated by the dozens of different lines they have to stand in. Jupiter’s feet fall asleep. Caine just looks increasing levels of grumpy. When they encounter Advocate Abe, Jupiter is about ready to climb over the various counters of the various different departments they are told to visit. Caine must notice this, because at one point he shifts a bit closer so that his hand at his side is just a hair away from hers. 

“I’ll never complain about the DMV, ever again,” Jupe says. “Like, you guys have teleportation and that still took like, ten hours. That’s like waiting for your number to get called for like a week.” 

“You are now an Entitled,” Caine says, way too casual for her tastes. “Congratulations, your Majesty.” 

Jupe stutters to a stop. “Does that mean you want to bite me?” 

It’s out before she even wants it to be out— she’s 0 for 3 with Caine, as it stands, and she still can’t get _I love dogs_ out of her head. There’s only so many embarrassing things a person can say before they stop being ‘weirdly cute’ and start being just plain weird. 

Even if she does get fancy free parking and a House Guard. 

“No,” Caine says. She’s so short that he has to bow his head to meet her gaze. 

Which is great, because he says no but Jupiter is relatively sure that he doesn’t mean it, but it could be just getting wires crossed, or cross-species cultural differences or customs that she just doesn’t know about it yet, and there could be something about not disobeying an Entitled or something. Something about that power imbalance makes her sick to her stomach, but at the same time Caine makes that mantle fit better, somehow. She nearly kicks herself as a reminder that Caine is just helping her to get him and Stinger reinstated. 

Jupe has to dig her nails into the palms of her hands, because then Caine adds, “Well, maybe.”

Okay, so if sixty-two hours ago, somebody had popped their head out of one of the toilets she was cleaning and told her, ‘Jupe, you are totally going to develop a fetish for space-werewolves that could physically rip your throat out’, she would have been very skeptical.

And yet, here she is. “Go ahead.”

But then Stinger, and oh, look, another Abrasax sibling. 

The entire taxi— what do you even call a smaller spaceship that just transports you to a bigger spaceship— Caine has her planted firmly between him and the wall, even with his hands and feet in space-handcuffs. Occasionally he turns to the royal guard and glares. The, well, mouse-woman, or whatever, makes several meaningful looks at the guard-things, but not one seems willing to step forward and separate them. 

Caine doesn’t take kindly to restraints, either, but Jupiter is so done with the Noble House of Abrasax that she leans her forehead against his bicep and keeps it there, for a time. 

He quiets, after that.

“Your Majesty,” Caine says quickly, when they arrive at Titus’ ship. 

“It’s okay,” Jupe assures him. She holds up the tablets from Orous and tucks them down the back of her shirt. “I talked myself out of a ticket one time in Detroit.”

She steps back into the beam of the same stuff that almost first-encountered she and Caine out of the highrise, only this stuff is going down. It’s a pleasant, cool sensation. Almost like standing underneath one of those misters that they have out on hot days. 

And yeah, okay, Titus ends up being a huge disaster. Like, ‘when she had been fifteen she had spilled bleach on a very expensive, very dark carpet and Aleska looked like she might have an aneurysm’ level of def-con seven disaster. 

But Jupe’s complete relief of seeing Caine, living, breathing, slightly growling Caine with a gun pointed straight up Titus’ nose, that’s something else entirely. 

And something she doesn’t particularly feel like talking about, at the moment. Not after Titus nearly pulled a goddamn _Princess Bride_. Jupiter had never considered herself a Buttercup. She didn’t have the coloring. Or the perfect breasts.  

Jupe paces. The endless dark of space, even with the ship’s portal technology, takes hours. The lack of changing scenery drives Jupe friggin’ nuts, so she paces up and down the metal hallway. She wants to be home. She wants to shake the feeling of that bond-machine burning a ring into her finger like the mark on her forearm.

“Your Majesty,” says Stinger. 

Jupiter flinches and whirls around. Stinger is standing there, apologetic, with what appears to be the pardon she had shoved, perhaps unfairly, at Caine. “Stinger.” 

Jupiter puts the palms of her hands against her eyelids, almost as if she could rub the memory of Titus guessing her feelings about _whatever_ she and Caine had from her brain. But she blinks a few times, only to see Stinger opening and closing his mouth like a gaping fish. 

“Something on your mind, Mr. Apini?”

“No, well,” Stinger starts. It’s nice, for once, to be the one not stumbling over questions. “It’s just, I wanted to. I apologize, for what happened with Titus. I did not know the extent of his plans.” 

Jupiter believes him, and she hopes that’s the only reason why she’s so ready to forgive him. 

If anyone has a right to be angry, it would be Caine. 

Okay, sure, Jupe should feel incredibly angry and has just as much right as Caine to feel betrayed, but. “You were nice to me, Stinger,” Jupiter tells him. “That list is pretty damn small off-world. On-world, too, now that I think about it.” 

He nods, and bows sincerely. “Yes, your Majesty.”

And then Jupe is left alone.

When the Aegis reach Chicago and Caine helps her into the light beam, Jupiter almost doesn’t have the energy to contemplate what her life will be. She wants to sleep for about six days, the fatigue that constantly plagued her before has somehow returned, even though she’s had plenty of sleep. Natural, or induced. She doesn’t want to think about what living her life while knowing that she is the sole heir and ruler of Earth will be like. She doesn’t want to think about having to deal with that while having to deal with all the other shit that piles up. She doesn’t want to think about saying goodbye to Caine. 

She doesn’t want to think about how she sometimes saw this look on his face like he wanted to be _in_ her, somehow. And not in the creepy, leering way, either, cause she’s experienced that too. Or in the ‘I want to own you’ way, either, cause even that was problematic. It was like, it was— 

She sighed, frustrated. Jupiter doesn’t know. She doesn’t know what Caine’s looking for, but she wants to give it to him so much that it makes her head hurt. She tries to remind herself to ask him, when this is all over and she’s had an actual chance to sleep.

But Jupe doesn’t even get the chance. “Vladie?” She asks, pushing the ajar door open further. “Mikka!” Her voice rises. “Irina!”

The house is trashed. Captain Tsing and Aegis files in with Caine and Stinger, but Jupe doesn’t even get to the kitchen before her questions are answered. 

And then, lots of guns. And Caine growling. 

“Your Majesty,” bows a strange rat-man in a fine coat. 

More Abrasax _bullshit_. “блядь,” Jupiter swears. “ _Where_ is my _family_.”

Rat-man smiles. Caine growls louder. Jupiter steps forward and plants her knuckles into his jaw.

“And there,” says Mr. Night, cracking his jaw back into place, “Is that famous Abrasax temper.” 

Mr. Night is barely an inch taller than her, but somehow, Jupe feels like she towers over him. “No, actually,” she says. “That wasn’t. That was all Bolotnikov.” 

“My Lord Balem wishes to inform you that you have two options, Majesty,” Mr. Night begins. “You can either accompany us to your namesake and declare yourself unfit to rule, returning the possession of this planet to it’s original owner, or you can refuse. Lord Balem cannot guarantee the safety of them, otherwise.” 

For one terrible, awful beat, Jupiter understands the truth beneath the Entitled speeches. She gives up the earth, or Balem will murder her family and turn them into bathwater for rich, privileged assholes.

“You’re going to kill my family,” Jupe asks. Not a question. A confirmation. 

“Lord Balem would never condone such cruelty,” Mr. Night says. 

“I cannot recommend this course of action, your Majesty,” says Captain Tsing. Stinger agrees with her sentiment. 

“Wait,” Jupiter calls out, giving up. “I’ll go.” 

Briefly, she can hear Caine whine, low in his throat. “Majesty—”

“I know,” Jupe says, turning to look at him. “But it’s my choice.” 

“Wonderful!” says Mr. Night. “I shall inform Lord Balem of the arrangement!”

Kalique’s palace was warm and full of light and gardens. Titus’ ship was elegant, but formal, and ultimately a lie. Balem’s palace is cold and distant and dark. No lights, no life. Just machinery. Jupe does her best to keep her chin up. Balem is off-balance, and cruel, and frightening. She begs, and cries, and tells him that she will do anything he wants if he would just let her family go. 

And then—

She doesn’t remember what happens. She remembers a commotion from below them, in the harvesting room, she remembers smashing the tablet over her knee in a sudden streak of brilliance. And then she remembers sinking through the floor. 

And she remembers Caine. 

“In case we don’t get another chance,” Jupe says, tugging him closer to her by his collar. It is an utterly stupid time to be doing this, she knows, but at the same time she doesn’t give a shit. 

Caine’s lips are warm, rough, but it takes him a minute before he surges forward again. Jupiter doesn’t miss the fact that he waits for permission. She’s gonna be honest, after all the crazy assholes she’s seen in the last three days, that gets him some serious points. Caine’s hands are suddenly on her neck, pulling her closer, fingers digging into her skin. He inhales deep and whines in his throat, which, _hello_ , yes.

“Majesty,” he exhales. 

 _Oh_ , _man_. This space-wolf could ask for the stars, and she’d be inclined to give it to him, just for the way he whispers a freakin’ title.

He moves to go, but visibly caves and comes back for just one more kiss that turns into two. Which drags on in toe-curling bliss, or would have, were they not surrounded by death and dismemberment. 

“Okay, okay,” Jupiter relents, releasing his collar. “Go.”

“Yes, Majesty.” 

But he caves one last time and nips her swollen bottom lip. Biting, biting was a thing. Jupiter was going to like this thing. “Caine,” she tries. “Caine, I’m a Jones, not a Saint!”

He’s gone. Jupiter needs more data on this subject. Possibly run through it in her head a couple times. Couple dozen times. Like back on the ship, and maybe back at Stinger’s Place. Maybe at her house when her family wasn’t looking. Maybe when she wasn’t about to be beheaded by a space-prince with a serious Oedipus complex. 

Okay, to be perfectly honest, she probably just wanted— needed, a few hundred encores. 

The refinery is dangerously close to imploding, but Jupiter, she thinks that she manages to avoid most of the danger until the patriarch of House Abrasax shows up with a blade. “You won’t shoot me,” Balem challenges, confident. 

Jupiter lowers the gun and immediately shoots him in the thigh. 

. . .

 

They head to Stinger’s for a week not long after, claiming that Jupiter got invited to a one-off nanny job for one of the people that they cleaned house for. Stinger and Kisa are both there, as are other members of the Legion that, from what Jupe understands, will be her personal House Guard. 

Which, that’s weird. 

Arguably not as weird as the Jupiter Refinery collapsing and imploding, and the portal back home with her unconscious family _or_ explaining how their house was suddenly much tidier and in much better condition than it had been, but, hey. Jupiter is not really in the mood for complaining. Especially because, for the first time in a very long while, she feels like she’s where she’s supposed to be. 

“I don’t wanna talk about it right now, momma,” Jupiter says, switching over to russian automatically. “Momma. Momma,” her mother is already chattering away, she can hear Aunt Nino in the background. 

Seven bees are flying in lazy patterns around her index finger as she idly waves it around for them.

“What does he look like, Jupiter?” Nino asks, still in russian.

“You have to bring him over,” Aleksa says. “We’ll make dinner.” 

Jupe doesn’t want to tell them that she’s currently surrounded by splice-soldiers at Stinger’s place, and the bees have already taken to flying in peaceful patterns around her head, or that there are three Aegis ships cloaked two hundred feet above them. Something about a permanent command presence on Earth, but Jupiter only retained half of the things that Kisa told her this morning.  

“Is he cute, Jupiter?” Vladie asks, sounding far away. “Does he have a cute brother?”

“He’s extremely cute,” she says, lowering her voice, even if she wasn’t still whispering in russian. Knowing Caine, he probably had super-hearing, too. “Like, ridiculously cute. No go on the brothers, though, sorry Vladie.”

She can hear Vladie start to bemoan how ‘I never get a break in life’, except she can also hear a slap. It could be either Aleksa or Nino, Jupe can’t tell. 

Also, it was extremely strange to see Legionnaires— _her_ Legionnaires, flying overhead as she listened to her family squabble. 

“Momma,” Jupe tries again. “Momma. Aleska. мам.”

“What, Jupiter?” 

“I’ve gotta go,” Jupiter says, watching Stinger stretch his wings in the yard. “Stuff to do, y’know.” 

“Behave,” Aleska cautions, over the sounds of everyone else on the other end of the line fighting to say the loudest goodbye. “Don’t do anything your father would do.” 

Aunt Nino says, “Cursed! Cursed, I tell you, the whole family.” 

“Goodbye, мам.”

Jupe swipes the comm interface on her communicator left and ends the call. 

“Is everything alright, Majesty?” Caine asks, suddenly landing at her side. 

She smiles at him from underneath her floppy hat that shades her face from the sun, but she stands up from the porch steps all the same. “Everything’s peachy,” Jupe says, kissing him briefly. It’s easier, because the porch step makes her roughly his height. 

As usual, Caine inhales sharply. Is that a spacewolf thing? She should ask Kisa. Kisa would probably know if it’s a space-wolf-man thing.

“I don’t think Legionnaires are supposed to be cute,” Caine says, offhandedly. Jupiter follows him up onto the porch— repaired, thanks to Aegis. 

“Whad’ya mean?” Jupe asks, picking up her shoes from where she left them. 

“Legionnaires,” Caine repeats. “They’re the most feared fighting force in the Galaxy.”

“Legionnaires can be cute,” Jupiter says. “Stop assigning ‘cute’ with positive and negative connotations. Besides, how did you even know that I—”

Jupiter narrows her eyes at Caine’s back, glances at his ass and says something remarkably filthy in russian. _Thank you, Vladie_. 

Caine trips over a lose board on the porch and sends the tablet that had been in his hands flying, but that’s not what has Jupe so upset. “You speak _Russian_?”

Caine turns back her way and tucks his head towards his chest, so Jupiter knows that she’s caught him. But, still, the mortification stands. She’s been switching to russian every time her family has asked about him and Stinger for the past couple weeks, off-world and on.

Space-tech had an incredible cell-range. 

“I, uhm,” Caine starts to say. “It’s technically standard Legionnaire gear, but most comm systems come with it.”

There’s a beat pause in which Jupiter closes the distance between them until she is close enough to push him back with a finger. 

“Caine,” Jupe says. 

He tries his best for innocent, but she knows that look, by now. “What?”

“ _Caine._ ” He puts his hand on the back of his head, looking like a dog that had yanked something off the counter and had devoured it, only it was way too cute to be mad at for long. “You and Stinger understood every word I’ve been saying, haven’t you.” 

“Yes,” Caine says, immediately. “I’m sorry, I forgot that Tershies haven’t developed basic translating software yet.” 

“Okay, so the part last week when Vladie joked about how big your—”

“Yes,” Caine gushes out. He clears his throat. He lowers his voice, “Yes.”

Suddenly, Jupe was thankful that Vladie had an incredibly filthy mouth. Okay, most of the time it was annoying, but in this instance she was going to allow it, because Caine turned a fascinating shade of pink when he blushed. And it covered his entire face. 

**Author's Note:**

> *sighs forever* Man I can already sense more of these two in my foreseeable future.
> 
> (I've since been informed that my russian was a bit off, so it's now been updated!)  
> Боже - Christ  
> блядь - Whore  
> мам - Ma


End file.
